


~ Shattering ~

by Spiced_Wine



Series: Splinters of Steel [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark Prince ‘verse, Gap Filler, Gen, Mordor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24589021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine
Summary: Before the armies of the Last Alliance leave Mordor, there is one last thing to do.Set in my Dark Prince ‘verse.
Series: Splinters of Steel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778620
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	~ Shattering ~

**Author's Note:**

> Chronologically, this gap-filler takes places just before Vanimórë leaves Mordor and heads south to become the Prince of Sud Sicanna. 
> 
> Vanimórë’s time as a prisoner of the Last Alliance is written of in Dark Prince and the last several chapters of Magnificat of the Damned Book I: Starfall. 
> 
> Banner by the wonderful Mithrial 
> 
> https://mithrial.dreamwidth.org/
> 
> In my ‘verse Glorfindel is the disowned son of Finarfin, the second son. Much later, In Magnificat of the Damned IV: Anvil, he and his father reconcile. 

  
[](https://postimg.cc/yWdynFVd)   
  
  
~ Galadriel turned in the mouth of the pavilion. She fixed her pale, brilliant eyes on Glorfindel. ‘We will need all the power we possess to bring that down to its foundations.’  
  
Beyond them, towering into thunderclouds, loomed Barad-dûr.  
  
‘Lúthien brought down the walls of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. I pondered long upon how she did it.’ She lifted her hand toward the tower and sullen light glanced off Nenya, gleaming on her finger. ‘Melian believed that it was all in the words. Words have power. Spell words, more than any. Sauron’s power binds that place, as it did Tol-in-Gaurhoth. I can feel it, from here.’ Her shoulders set, her profile was grim and the mouth straight as it had been since she had ridden up from Lórien, passed unflinching through the Morannon and the desolation of Udûn.  
  
Glorfindel drew his eyes away from that immense colossus under whose shadow the Alliance had fought for seven years. Fought and died. Grief and fury lodged under his breastbone like an arrowhead that could never be dug out.  
‘We have no knowledge of these words, Lady.’  
Lady — though she was his younger sister; his name had been struck from the genealogy of the House of Finarfin. His sister, the last of Finarfin’s children to survive, at least until Glorfindel’s return. Yet they had been parted long, and Middle-earth had changed her. Perhaps it changed everyone.  
It had not sapped her strength of will or her courage, Glorfindel admitted. She stood in the mouth of the pavilion like a queen surveying a subjugated realm.  
  
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I am thinking. But we have music. And we have the Three.’ She glanced at him. ‘Tindómion is healed?’  
  
‘Almost. His leg was not broken. It is not his physical injuries —‘  
  
‘I know. And nevertheless. He cannot flee, go into the shadows as his sire did. At least, not yet.’ And she looked back at the tower. There was no fear in her gaze, she was seeking out its weaknesses.  
  
‘He will not flee. Neither did Maglor flee,’ Glorfindel snapped, but Tindómion was stretched on the rack of loss, the dreadful knowledge of what had happened to Gil-galad’s soul. He did not weep, but an irreconcilable rage of madness burned in his eyes.  
  
_And I knew. I knew. Manwë took great pleasure in telling me of the punishment reserved for those men or women of loved their own gender. I knew where their souls had gone, those great ones. Gil-galad knew it too, and Tindómion and yet they defied it and so very little..._  
  
‘I know how he feels and so dost thou,’ Galadriel said. ‘Let that passion, that hate be directed. He has his father’s gift.’  
  
With a sudden and furious pivot on his foot, Glorfindel left the pavilion, striding through the tents.  
  
Most of the Mannish army had withdrawn out into Ithilien, only Isildur and a few companies remaining. The Elves had stayed, even Thranduil, whose folk had suffered so much, as had some of the Longbeard dwarves out of Khazad-dûm. They would witness. The Dark Lord was gone, but the monument to his power and sorcery remained.  
  
Not far away stood another pavilion. Glorfindel flipped back the tent-flap, and the man within spun. His arms, raised to twist his hair into a high plume, dropped at once, ready for battle, flashing to the hilts of his knives. Seeing whom it was, he stopped, the mass of gleaming black hair had tumbled to his knees.  
‘Precipitate,’ he murmured, with that intoxicating, maddening smile. ‘But sometimes thou art, no?’ A winging brow lifted. ‘Is something wrong?’  
  
‘Thou art ready to depart?’ There was a twinge of regret. This strange thrall, bound to Sauron, was a mystery that Glorfindel would have liked to unravel, to know better. But he had given his word and would not be foresworn.  
  
‘As soon as I am permitted.’  
  
‘The tower must be destroyed.’  
  
‘Oh?’ Without apparent interest. ‘I wish thee good fortune, then.’  
  
Glorfindel picked up a pitcher of wine and poured two cups. ‘Control thine enthusiasm,’ he suggested dryly, earning a sparkle from those dense violet eyes. ‘Lúthien brought down the walls of Tol-in-Gaurhoth by unbinding the spells from the stone — or so we think.’  
  
Over the rim of the goblet, the man blinked slowly. ‘Yes? I am afraid I was not there.’  
  
‘Sauron bound power into his tower,’ Glorfindel pursued. ‘Wert thou here when it was raised?’ In asking, he felt the dizzying swoop of the huge gulf between them. This thrall was an Elf, he was absolutely a Noldo, but he was also chained to the Dark Lord, even knew he was not utterly destroyed; only diminished.  
  
‘Some of the time,’ the other admitted. ‘Not all. Yes, he bound the tower with sorcery.’ He took a sip of wine, then came close. ‘Glorfindel.’ His accented, dark-wine voice made a caress of the name. ‘Thou hast great power since returning from death, and others among thee have might also. But thou art right in that the power is in the words; thou knowest it. And I cannot give them to thee. I do not know them. He would scarce share them with his slave.’ A little flick of irony on the last word. ‘And I had little interest in his powers. I am a warrior.’  
  
‘Rather more than that.’ There was no simple word for what he was. He could not be read; there were walls about his mind higher than snow-crowned Taniquetil, but perhaps Sauron had placed them there? Useless to speculate, and he had proved his worth fighting against Sauron’s forces on the slopes of Orodruin. He would go soon, as he had purposed, to the south and there live free of his master for as long as it took Sauron to return. Glorfindel regretted that he had refused to accompany them West, to Imladris, but understood why he would not.  
  
‘There is a power in song,’ he said. ‘Thou knowest that? Lúthien was half-Maia. Well, we have no half-Maia here.’ The man smiled wryly. ‘But Tindómion has inherited more from his father than his face. I believe...’ Glorfindel frowned. ‘He can use song the way ice cracks rock, and break the stones of the tower. It will take more than that of course. It will take all of us, and the Three...’ He paused. ‘Galadriel wants to do it for Finrod, of course. I, too.’  
  
The violet eyes watched him for a long, long moment. Then: ‘Some of it was created through normal labour. Thousands of slaves toiled for many years. But the tower itself...He grew the stone.’ His mouth curled faintly. ‘There is a great deal I do not know about him, much that is hidden, but this I saw. He grew the stone. Six hundred years it took. The foundations — I am not sure, Golden One, that thou canst destroy them. Sauron drew power from the earth, rammed his own into the earth and subsoil and rock beneath. And from that, he raised the tower proper. That, perhaps, thou canst bring down. It will,’ he said honestly. ‘Take a great deal of power, but as I have said, there _is_ power here: in thyself, in the Lady Galadriel, in Elrond, in Círdan of the Falas, Gildor, and in others here.’ His head moved as if seeing through the walls of the tent. ‘The folk of the Great Wood, the people of Dúrin, and Fëanorion power in Tindómion. All must be harnessed.’  
  
‘Galadriel spoke of the Three Elven Rings.’  
  
‘To bring them all and bind them?’ Sardonically. ‘It may work, if all are willing.’  
  
‘Thou hast knowledge of them?’ Glorfindel was not surprised. The man might call himself a slave, but the name was also some sort of title. A very special slave, he thought with a spike of anger. And unique. There were no others like him.  
  
‘He spoke of Celebrimbor.’ Sombrely. ‘I was there when he created the One.’  
  
Again that enormous chasm opened, and still it could not banish the sense of a curious affinity.  
‘Very well,’ Glorfindel said slowly. ‘ And so all the strength we have must be bound together with song.’  
  
‘A certain frequency,’ the man murmured as if to himself. ‘Yes. Perhaps. I would witness this if I may.’  
  
Of course; surely he would wish to see the place that has been his prison destroyed.  
  
‘And I would ask thee more about the tower.’  
  
The man gestured with his hand for Glorfindel to continue. In answer, Glorfindel raised the tent flap and they went out, walking through the pavilions. Dusk was falling. The air smelt hot, dusty with the age-old reek of sulphur and seven years of blood.  
  
Against the advancing night, Barad-dûr’s high courses lit with reddish lamps, like a wreath of rubies climbing to the peak.  
  
‘Do any still dwell there?’  
  
‘Some, yes. Slaves in the undercaverns, those who service the great furnaces that power the machines and produce that light; kitchen scullions. The orcs will have fled.’ The man turned his head. ‘I will need to enter. Hast thou any objection?’  
  
‘I do not know,’ Glorfindel responded levelly. ‘ _Do_ I have any objection?’  
  
There was a brief flash of icy teeth. ‘The tower is a city, Golden One, not merely a seat of power. Sauron sent out his armies, but still in there will be slaves, men and women, scribes, artisans, who have known nothing but Barad-dûr. Wilt thou allow them to leave unharmed?’  
  
‘The decision is not mine to make.’ Glorfindel frowned. ‘Then they will not have fled?’  
  
‘Where would they go? They have known nothing else, no other life.’  
  
‘I will speak to the others. Isildur and the Dwarves will need to decide on this matter also.’  
  
‘Very well.’ He began to walk away.  
  
‘If you art going in,’ Glorfindel said. ‘I go with thee. Not that I do not trust thee, but we must enter. We should see it. Come.’  
  
The man nodded. He drew the hood of his cloak up over his face.  
  
Glorfindel did not return at once to the command tent, but entered Tindómion’s. The slave waited outside. He had, Glorfindel thought, the most exquisite manners; he might have been raised in the delicate hierarchy of Tirion.  
  
Tindómion sat polishing his cuirass. His hair was severely bound back in the ‘mourning braids’ that all Gil-galad’s people had adopted since his death. As he turned, such was the white blaze of his face, the fire of his eyes, that Glorfindel stopped, remembering Fëanor’s face in the icy mists of Araman. Tindómion was so like him.  
  
But then the absolute _grief_ descended, casting the lines of his face into marble, and his eyes became opaque silver, giving nothing back.  
  
‘Thou art needed,’ Glorfindel said sternly, so that Tindómion rose with an upflung toss of that beautiful head.  
‘For what?’  
  
Glorfindel, ungentle, caught his arm, drew him out, pointed to the ruby-lit titan of the tower.  
‘To bring it down.’  
  
Tindómion coughed or laughed, the sound like rust-sheathed velvet. ‘Will it bring him back? I leave, Glorfindel. The battle is done, my service is ended.’  
  
‘Nothing is ended.’ It was the thrall who spoke. Tindómion wheeled to face him, madness edged his eyes like glowing nacre.  
‘Gil is _dead_!’ His voice rang like a proclamation in the Mahanaxar. ‘He is _gone_ and more than gone!’ His hands clenched air. ‘Tell me why it is not ended, _Slave of Sauron_!’  
  
‘It is not ended, because I say it is not ended, _Fëanorion_!’ The riposte was a steel whip. Within the shadow of his hood, violet eyes blazed with an unearthly light. To Glorfindel he seemed to tower against the ember-dark sky like a god of the ancient world. He found that he was staring.  
‘Thy grandsire and all his sons defied the Valar,’ the slave continued. And for that the Valar reeled them into the Void. _Yes_ , Gil-galad was taken to the Void. Is that the end then?’  
  
Tindómion’s eyes flashed.  
‘Is it not? The Void, where Melkor and his minions were sent?’ His fury lashed out, white fire that slammed into the thrall’s adamantine. Where they met the air seemed to scorch. Glorfindel could feel it like a dance of electricity over his face, in the roots of his hair.  
  
‘I choose to believe it is not. I believe that Fëanor, his sons, Fingolfin, none of those banished to the Dark would _ever_ surrender their will.’ Abruptly, the man moved, caught Tindómion’s arm. ‘And so we will not surrender either. And we will fight the gods because there is no other way. Thy father was held there, in Barad-dûr; thou knowest it dost thou not?’  
  
Tindómion froze, save his head, which turned toward the tower. Pain crashed over it like a sea-wave.  
‘I dreamt,’ he gasped like a man dying. ‘I — _how knowest thou_?’ He wrenched free.  
  
‘I was — am — Sauron’s slave,’ the thrall reminded him. ‘Maglor escaped. He is far from here, but the torment he suffered lives in the very stone. Feel it, Tindómion Maglorion Fëanorion. _Use_ it.’  
  
Maglor, whom Tindómion had vowed to kill for the rape of his mother, whom he had struggled against loving. But blood pulls to blood as the moon pulls the tides. Glorfindel watched his face change, grieving still but now hard with rage and resolve.  
‘Tell me how,’ he commanded.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


OooOooO

~ Círdan and Gildor had joined Elrond and Galadriel in the pavilion. When Glorfindel entered with Tindómion and the thrall, the Lady turned. She had been told about the strange prisoner of the Alliance, the one who had seemed to want to be caught, the Elf bound to Sauron. She did not move did not, at first, speak, only her eyes became intent and her long fingers clenched into knots.

The thrall bowed inclusively to all of them. Glorfindel said, ‘We — or some of us — must enter the tower. And there will be slaves within, I am informed, not orcs, but Mortals bound to the Dark Lord.’ He wished he had a name to give to their erstwhile prisoner, but he did not so he indicated with a sweep of his hand. ‘As slaves, they had no choice in their service and it would be merciful to allow them to go free.’

‘We are not murderers,’ Elrond agreed. ‘But where would they go?’

‘Where does any save go when they are freed?’ the thrall asked rhetorically. ‘Down south to Núrnen, perhaps or on into Khand.’

‘So _thou_ art Sauron’s soul-bound prisoner?’ Galadriel interposed. She looked at Elrond. ‘Why art thou releasing him?’

Glorfindel saw the thrall’s faint, amused smile. Galadriel continued: ‘I have heard that Sauron can see all thou seest, but a place under the protection of one of the Three...?‘ She let the thought hang like a ripe fruit.

‘Our word is our bond, Galadriel,’ Glorfindel said shortly.

‘Does he _want_ to be released?’ she questioned.

‘My Lady, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to dwell among the Elves,’ the man said smoothly. ‘But alas, Sauron would also gain great pleasure and, ultimately, knowledge. When he calls me back — as he will, in time — he will sift my mind as a baker sifts flour for fine white bread. And if thou wert to attempt to stop me answering his call, that would result in violence.’

‘I see.’ Her eyes dropped, lifted again, conveying nothing. She turned her gaze to Glorfindel. ‘Yes, we must enter the tower; we need to appraise it, we cannot do so from a distance.’

OooOooO

In the early days of the war, the commanders and captains had dreamed of entering Barad-dûr with an army. Now they sent only one small company each. Mordor had stamped itself on them, changed them forever. It was not only the war, the death of companions, but the unrelenting assault of a pitiless and alien power that had dug holes in their minds. Some would never heal, but would fester forever, long after the physical wounds had faded.

Gil-galad’s commanders went in the vanguard: Glorfindel, Elrond, Gildor, Tindómion. Galadriel and the thrall were with them. They went armed, including the Lady, who wore a sword at her hip and had strapped on a leather breastplate. Tindómion, in full panoply of war, also carried, incongruously, a harp. Behind them came Círdan with his warriors, then Thranduil of the Great Wood and Amroth of Lórien. Both of those men had lost their fathers on Dagorlad, years before the siege. The losses of the Silvans had been catastrophic.

Behind them came the dwarves of Khazad-dûm, gold in their luxuriant beards, battle-axes shining. Isildir followed with a company of grim captains and behind them, last though not least, were those who owned neither the Men of Westernesse or the Elves allegiance but had nonetheless marched to the war. There were men out of the north, the wild lands between the Great Wood and the Towers of Mist, the headwaters of the cold Langwell and Greylin. There were hunters from Rhovannion, even Lossoth from the icy lands around the bay of Fororchel. Some had sent warriors from their tribes, others had come alone, or with friends now lost but they would not leave for their homes without witnessing this last act in the war against the Dark Lord.

The wide road, littered with debris, ran straight as as spine toward the tower. A dry wind whipped the tattered banners, sent dust skimming and spiralling as if writing shapes in an unknown hand on the black metalled surface.

And Barad-dûr rose before them, eating the sky.

The road widened, became three; one ran straight ahead into the mighty gates; the other two delved downward to left and right.

‘To the smithies, the cellars.’ The thrall’s voice broke the silence. ‘Tribute passed down those roads. The wealth of half a world.’

‘Slave tribute,’ Elrond said.

‘Some of it, yes, Not all. There are those who serve and give willingly. The Variags of Khand believe themselves his chosen people and are proud of it. They are warriors and artisans and their land is harsh and beautiful. The orcs are only a part for it.’ He gestured with an elegant black-gloved hand then quickened his stride, black boots puffing up the dust.

And still Barad-dûr grew, immense and awful, yet with a clean beauty in its lines under the cruel excrenences of claw and dagger-shape. Glorfindel tilted his head back, remembering the weird and impossible architecture of Ilmarin. No Mortal or Elf could have raised such a monument except, perhaps, Fëanor — had he lived. The dimensions of the tower were built to the dream of a conquering god, like the Valar’s constructions.  
Half a league away, the road ran into the great gates. Massive fire-bowls, twice as tall as a man, had been set along the way but their flames had died to ash.

The thrall had drawn a little way ahead, and Glorfindel watched that long, cat-prowl, light and arrogant and deadly, the black horse-tail swinging. _Men follow him,_ he thought. Then Galadriel came to his side, touched his arm.  
_Has thou not asked him how he was bound_?

 _Many times. He will not say, perhaps his master has barred him from speaking of it. I think— I think he was very young._ Again he watched the tall, dark figure striding before them. How many times had he walked this road? _What seest thou in him_? he asked.

Her thoughts came troubled. _Nothing. I feel what I see: Absolute confidence. Arrogance. Humour. Fatalism, perhaps. And that is what he wants us to see. But he is of the Noldor, Glorfindel. He should return to his people._

_I think he is Sauron’s now, Lady. And he would give his soul not to be._

_But he is not Sauron’s. He is absolutely himself. Who is he_? she wondered. _He is almost familiar._

 _Yes,_ Glorfindel agreed, for he had puzzled over it often: that patrician arrangement of bones, the slim straight nose, the high sweep of cheeks and splendid eyes under their black arch of brow. That mouth too, hard and scrolled as a statue’s (and so rich, so passionate). _But even if he knows, remembers, he will never tell._ He looked aside at her. _Thinks’t thou he should be killed, then_?

At that, the thrall looked over his shoulder as if aware they spoke of him. He flashed a smile and Galadriel’s breath caught as if she had received a slap. Glorfindel understood; he had been the recipient of that charming, wicked smile and knew how it affected one. But in Galadriel, he felt no spark of desire, but rather a throb of fear, quickly suppressed. Or perhaps fear was the wrong word: shock, maybe.

 _What is is_?

 _He is dangerous,_ she replied after a long moment, her own mind closing to him. _But kill him..._? Clearly she was thinking of it. _He is a weapon. He knew of what he spoke when he said the Dark Lord would return. He could be a weapon aimed at us, one day._

_He was. He fought on Dagorlad in in Mordor. And he seemed almost dilatory, nothing like the way he fought in the last battle on Orodruin’s slopes. He wanted to be captured. But weapon or no, I have no intention of killing him, Galadriel. I have felt and seen his agonies, his courage. Neither do I think it would be easy._

_No,_ she returned. _In a duel, I doubt it would be._

They walked the rest of that half league in silence, to the steps that rose to the opened gates. Beyond, the mouth of the tower yawned, fashioned like the opened throat of a serpent, fangs agape. At the foot of the steps, the thrall spun, opened his arms.  
‘My Lords, my Lady, Lugbúrz lies open to thee.’ And he turned, stepped lightly up.

OooOooO

The entrance hall was cavernous, arched doorways leading off, while the main way drove straight on toward another flight of steps. Lamps were lit as they entered, pausing to look around, but the thrall walked on. It seemed not to touch him, but even Glorfindel was aware of the giant power that still dwelt here though Sauron was gone. So long had this been his place, fashioned from the power of his mind, that the tower itself felt like an extension of it. It seemed completely inevitable that he would return and, for a moment, the Alliance, the striving, bloody war showed itself as pointless.

He caught himself. It was the tower, part of the danger of it, to depress the spirit, to drain hope. Yet Maglor had been brought here, and left. And he had been alone, without succour, just as Maedhros had been alone in Angband.  
The thought stiffened his muscles. He turned to look at the others, glad that all those had come were volunteers.  
Galadriel lifted her head as if warding off repeated blows, her jaw tight. Elrond clenched himself. Tindómion walked like a man going willingly to his death in fire, silver eyes burning up in the gloom like Fëanorion lamps.

Beyond them, Glorfindel saw Thranduil, planed face white and attenuated, proceeding as if into a gale, eyes gone to steel. There was Amroth of Lórien, likewise resolved. He glimpsed a warrior taller than either, a hood drawn up over his head showing just a drift of snowy hair, walking with the same coincidence as the thrall, then other Forest Lords. Beyond them, the dwarves stamped in solidly, as if laying claim, fingering their axes, and then Isildur entered with his captains, chin raised, but face ashen. One hand rested in his breastplate. Glorfindel’s eyes narrowed; was that where he wore the One Ring? Too late, he thought, to do anything about that. _And we shall all rue it._

The thrall stood on the next flight of steps.  
‘If thou wouldst take my advice, we shall proceed to the throne hall but no further. For indeed thou shouldst see it, mark it, assimilate what thou must needs do here, but then we should leave and be clear of this tower before it falls.’

The throne hall demanded obedience, it demanded one grovel, pressed to the cold black floor while it towered above. Fire-bowls formed a corridor toward the throne; steel manacles hung from them and the metal was tinged yet darker with what Glorfindel was sure was blood. The thrall walked past them as if he did not even see them. _But he has, and many times._

Sacrifice. Blood to the Dark Lord.

But what the gory corridor lead to was far more oppressive. Glorfindel sensed it at first, then the others, heads going up. But shadows massed beyond the throne and they could not see.

The thrall’s eyes met his, somber, measuring. He reached out a hand for Glorfindel’s lamp and taking it, hurled it into the nearest fire-bowl. The glass smashed, flames gulped, caught and billowed up.  
They lit the face of a Dark God.

Behind the throne a great statue of bronze stood. Crowned and naked, hair lifted in waves of poured metal, the eye sockets inlaid with some blue-black gem that seemed to catch and hold the fire and come alive.

At one pulse of the light, the face was terrible beyond enduring, an inward sucking violation that would devour the soul; in another wash of the fire, it became too beautiful for the eye to comprehend, only worship was left and the knowledge that no worship could ever suffice. One must bow, offer everything, and then beg for death.

There were few here who had seen this god, but Glorfindel was one, Galadriel another, and in Valinor Melkor had dissembled, veiled his true self. And Fëanor had named him ‘Jail-crow’ dauntless, uncowed. Pushing against that massive onslaught of power, Glorfindel stepped forward although far behind him, he heard the rustle and clink of harness as men fled or went to their knees, even wept.

‘It was built as a sop.’ The thrall was matter-of-fact; the dry, mocking inflection acted like a dash of cold water. ‘In case Melkor ever _should_ return. In fact Sauron wanted that — wants that — less than anyone.’

Tindómion came to Glorfindel’s side then passed him, walking straight to the thrall, whose foot rested on the first step of the throne. Glorfindel watched as his head rose to encompass the whole of the statue. ‘Morgoth Bauglir is imprisoned within the Void, as is—‘ And a tremor cracked Tindómion’s resonant voice. ‘Gil-galad, my grandsire, my uncles’—‘ He let the harp strap slide down his arm, and positioned the harp.

Galadriel stirred at Glorfindel's side, and raised her hand. Elrond and Círdan joined her. Nenya, Vilya and Nárya welled with light that, moment by moment, overcame the lurid flame-glare. White, star-blue and a ruby-red that was dark and clean and clear — indomitable; Nárya, the colour of Celebrimbor’s spirit calling the others to resist dominion, to resist despair.

Glorfindel went to Tindómion, laid a hand on one shoulder. The lamps in the throne -hall seemed dim, the doorway dark. A few faces stood out as if self-illuminated and again Glorfindel saw the white haired Elf who stood near Thranduil. Now his head was raised and his eyes, that appeared as oddly white as his hair were fixed, unblinking, on the statue.

A strange, dissonant note rose from Tindómion’s harp, and another, deeper, as if he were testing the strings for something. Glorfindel had the odd sensation that the Three Rings too, were vibrating, seeking....

And then the harp string reverberated with a long, terrible humming that went through teeth and bone and the the skull itself, set a ringing in the ears. He heard the Three answer, their tonalities blending into one.

A deep, far away shuddering transmitted itself through Glorfindel’s feet. His eyes flashed to the thrall’s. Who snapped: ‘ _Go._ ’

That subterranean hum grew deeper. They began to walk back through the lines of sacrificial pillars, through the doors, down the steps. Glorfindel looked back, and the jewelled eyes of Melkor promised vengeance.

A fine dust shook itself loose and pattered on the stone of the road. Tindómion’s fingers remained on his harp, drawing out that unsettling, vibrant note, and the Ring light bloomed against the overcast sky.

The thrall came last, pausing on the steps. A piece of stone as large as a cart crashed down from very high up.

‘Go on,’ the thrall said grimly. When Glorfindel looked back again, he was not there.  
He cursed but could not leave Tindómion whose mind was far away, within the spell of his music. The road stretched endlessly ahead; the tower frowned over them, inescapable. More masonry fell in splintering crashes that shook the road, the land, opening smoking fissures. Orodruin, quiescent since the Dark Lord’s fall, rumbled.

The white-haired Elf was walking backwards, staring up, hood fallen back from his head. Glorfindel had thought the light in the throne-hall had blanched his eyes pale, but the daylight showed that they were indeed white. They glanced down, met his own for an instant. Yes, white, with an icy, perilous glitter. And what a face — refined and hard and beautiful as a sword is beautiful. The hair, thick as flowing water, drawn over one shoulder, poured to his knees. The warrior’s eyes passed to Tindómion and rested there. Transfixed, Glorfindel opened his mouth to speak, but another tremendous crash swallowed the words. The strange Elf turned away.

The thrall, Glorfindel thought. Had he purposed this all along? Did he mean to die in the tower, or had Sauron, even in his reduced state, somehow called on his slave to end his life this way? It was not to be borne.

He paused, turned back; great clouds of dust rolled out of the massive gateway. They had swallowed the thrall...

It was leagues to the encampment. And all the way Glorfindel looked back, even reached out with his mind. There was no answer.

They turned as one, on reaching the camp, and Tindómion’s fingers flashed over the strings of his harp, until all the notes blended in that low thrum of power and the Three sang in answer, challenging. They stood within _sound_ ; it passed through them, was within them, seemed almost to lift them from the ground, to unspin their mortal forms and hold them as notes in the Great Song...

Glorfindel could hear their souls: Galadriel, Elrond, Círdan, and others the power of the Forest through Thranduil and his people, the sea storms of the Falathrim, the remaining Noldor, hard as steel and granite with fire beneath — and others. Ice and flame, and a metal harder than any forged in Middle-earth or Valinor...

Barad-dûr shook from base to crown and crumbled, all that titan edifice built of sorcery collapsed within itself. A massive dust cloud mushroomed up; shockwaves ran across the earth. Orodruin erupted in fire.

The sound ceased; its echoes hung in the air then faded into the distances of the universe, far far beyond what the ear could hear. The light from the Rings coiled back into slumber and their bearers staggered. Tindómion dropped his hands, his eyes blank and blazing silver. He removed his tall, plumed helm, let it fall to the earth. Glorfindel saw his lips shape words. _Gil._ Then: _Father._ His eyes closed.

Despite the fall of the tower, the eruption of the volcano, it seemed uncannily quiet. The dust rose into the air, but a wind was rising with it, blowing up from the South, and would carry it away over the barren Ered Lithui.

Glorfindel stared. Then stared again as a dark figure walked out of the roiling dust. It lay in a patina over his black leathers, his glossy hair. He slapped it off as he approached with that warrior’s stride.

‘I thought thee _dead_ ,’ Glorfindel flashed, going to meet him.

‘There were a few slaves,’ the thrall returned calmly. ‘Hiding by the gates. Too terrified to remain, too scared to leave. I set them on their way south.’ He inclined his head to the three Ring-bearers, to Tindómion. And softly then, for Glorfindel alone: ‘It makes no difference, Golden One. He will return.’

‘I know,’ Glorfindel said. ‘But the Shadow is lifted for now.’

‘Fo now,’ the thrall agreed. ‘And for that time...’ That lovely, wicked smile illuminated his face. ‘I have always wanted to see if I could rule a city alone. I think I will try that.’

‘So easily?’ Glorfindel asked dryly. ‘What wilt thou do, just walk in and take one? Alone?’

The brilliant violet eyes widened. ‘Something like that,’ he agreed. ‘I learned, and from a master.’

Glorfindel thought of the thrall in the throne-hall. He had not sat himself upon that dark, dark throne. _But he could have. Who is the Hells_ is _he_?

The man turned and did something that, at the time, Glorfindel found startling and strange.  
He stepped to Tindómion, laid his hands each side of the Fëanorion’s face and said something under his breath. He kissed Tindómion’s brow like a king conferring a blessing, then walked away.

OooOooO


End file.
